Pearse Doherty (Donegal South West, Sinn Fein)
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218. To ask the Minister for Finance the number of companies engaged in contract manufacturing in a way that may distort economic data; and if he will provide the names of these companies. [10397/15]

Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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I am advised by the Central Statistics Office (CSO) that there are currently 16 companies engaged in contract manufacturing.  This number changes because companies which are involved in contract manufacturing in one period may not be in the following period.  I do not have the names of the companies involved; the Statistics Act 1993 restricts the use of information supplied  to the CSO solely to statistical purposes and prohibits identifying the  undertakings which supply this information.

I am also advised by the CSO that contract manufacturing activities abroad for Irish companies in the recent quarters of 2014 in the Quarterly National Accounts and Balance of Payments have resulted in increased exports of goods relative to data previously released in the monthly trade release. In the National Accounts, monthly trade exports are adjusted for contract manufacturing and for other methodological and data purposes. However, these contract manufacturing activities also result in greater imports of services, in particular royalty imports (related to the use of intellectual property associated with the finished products) and the manufacturing services supplied by the contract manufacturer. In arriving at estimates of GDP it is necessary to subtract these service imports and other costs from the value of exports. The result shows that the overall impact on Ireland's GDP of these activities is not a significant factor in explaining the recent improvement in economic performance in this country.